


Adventures in Studying

by velvetwastaken



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - College/University, Annie and Armin are nerds, F/M, but we'll just blame it on the booze, this is probably wildly ooc, written in 1st person present and 1st person past tenses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-27
Updated: 2016-01-27
Packaged: 2018-05-16 15:45:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5831371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velvetwastaken/pseuds/velvetwastaken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"How could you possibly get a drunk and disorderly in a library?”</p><p>Well, you’d be surprised.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adventures in Studying

**Author's Note:**

> This is the result of a tumblr writing prompt that my trash self stole and sullied with my otp nonsense. I'm going to go ahead and apologise right now for even attempting this prompt because I, who have never had a drink in my life, have written some 10 000 words supposedly about drunk people. So, there is no way in a thousand universes that this is anything like accurate. But idc I had a blast writing it. 
> 
> Also, I made a companion playlist on 8tracks if you care to read to some classy bg music: http://8tracks.com/velvetwastaken/adventures-in-studying
> 
>  
> 
> (This story has tense shifts, which I more than likely messed up here and there. If you can find it in your heart to point out any I missed in my edits I will be forever grateful to you.)

 

 

"How could you possibly get a drunk and disorderly in a library?”

 

Well, you’d be surprised. It’s still kind of surreal how it all turned out actually. I can’t even begin to wrap my currently aching head around how perfectly everything fell into place all things considered, but right now I am rudely torn away from my contemplation by one Eren Jeager. 

 

Eren and I have been friends for years, since elementary school, and while the ferocity in his green eyed gaze doesn’t bother me in the slightest, him kicking out the legs of the chair I had been so peacefully rocking on rather did. 

  

“What, Eren, geez,” I say as the legs of my chair reconnect with the tiled floor, sending a painful jolt up my spine and rattles my already pounding brain.

 

 “You didn’t answer my question. How do you get a —”

 

“Yeah, I heard you the first time,” I cut him off. This is the secret to Eren: don’t let him build up any stream. If you do, godspeed my friend, you’re in for a two hour tirade on Goldfish crackers or HB pencils or whatever else has captured his attention at that particular moment. 

  

“Well, then,” says Eren, making an expansive gesture, as if all the occupants of the dingy cafe we’re currently in are also avidly awaiting my detailed explanation of why exactly Eren and Mikasa had to come and pick me up from a drunk tank this morning. 

  

“Well, then,” I repeat mockingly, slouching over the table to rest my still aching head into my gingerly folded arms. I don’t even care about the half dried up puddle ketchup in which my elbow is currently sitting. 

  

“Eren, the story’s not going anywhere. Wait a minute for our coffees and then I’m sure Armin will be slightly more lucid.” Bless Mikasa, ever the voice of reason and logic. 

 

I give Mikasa a thumbs up, and I can hear her huff of laughter behind her trademark scarf, and Eren’s deep sigh of disgust, but I don’t bother to look up; it’s nice and dark with my arms wrapped around my head, and the cold table, aside from smelling like worn socks, actually feels kind of nice against my forehead.

 

Finally, our drinks arrive, and I gratefully take a large gulp, the scalding liquid burning down my throat, guaranteeing I won’t be able to taste anything properly for days, which is for the best really; the coffee here tastes exactly like the tables smell. I don’t know why we still come here. Oh, because it’s cheap, and we’re broke. Such is student life.

 

I can feel Eren’s eyes boring holes right through me, but I ignore him for a moment more, taking another, slower, slip of my coffee and turning to Mikasa. 

 

“Thanks for picking me up, by the way,” I say. Mikasa’s the only on of us with a car and while it’s reliability is often questionable, it’s still ten times better than public transit.

 

Mikasa absently stirs the whipped cream into her hot chocolate. “No problem. How did Annie get home?”

 

“One of her roommates came and picked her up.”

 

“What, she couldn’t give you a ride, too? Rude,” says Eren, indignant on my behalf.

 

“Well, they kind of live no where near us, and besides, I’d already called you guys,” I say. 

 

“Whatever. Now talk.”

 

I sigh. There’s no getting out of it, one way or another Eren will wring the entire tired tail out of me. But to be perfectly honest, I don’t even know where to start. So I guess I’ll start with Annie.

  

~(◕▿◕✿)~

 

I noticed Annie immediately, in my very first class of my very first day at university. She sat near the front, but off to one side of the huge lecture hall. She took her notes on an iPad and kept having to tuck wayward locks of hair behind her ears when they fell in front of her glasses, which she only wore during lectures. She never spoke up in the class discussions, but she followed them with rapt attention, her pale blue eyes focusing on every commenter, her head nodding a little every so often. After class she stayed behind and spoke to the Prof, then left, a messenger bag on one shoulder and her iPad tucked under her arm, her eyes distant and lost in thought. I was completely smitten.

 

Annie was beautiful, and smart, and all I wanted was to get to know her, but it took me until second year to actually get the nerve to even talk to her. It’s funny how you spend so much time noticing other people that you don’t even think if anyone might me noticing you as well. Apparently Annie had noticed me enough to come to the same conclusion I had: we were both in the same major; it just made logical sense then that we become study buddies. We compared notes, exchanged flash cards, discussed the latest articles in Psychology Today, but mostly we studied in companionable silence. I’d never felt so effortlessly comfortable around someone, not counting Eren and Mikasa, whom I’d known since our days playing in sandboxes, and therefore don’t count.

 

By the time fourth year rolled around, we had both pretty much finished all the core requirements for our degrees, all that was left were a few more credits from some electives. We needed three classes; I wanted to take a film class because I love movies almost as much as I love writing essays; Annie wanted to take an art history class because as much as she tried to deny it, I knew she had a weird obsession with renaissance painters. That left us with one more class. We ending up picking an obscure psychology class. I’m not sure what the draw was, to be honest; _Integrated Behavioural Psychology of Substance Use_ didn’t really sound particularly riveting to me, and the instructors had some god awful reviews on ratemyprofessors.com, but it was this or rocks for jocks, so we signed up.

 

I should have known we were in trouble when a week before winter semester started we got an email from the Prof, a Dr. Zoë Hans. Apparently our first class would take place at the shitty pub on campus. Annie and I really could’n’t’ve cared less where the class was held as long as it didn’t drag down our GPAs. So the Wednesday after classes resumed, we met up outside the Earth Sciences building and headed down to the basement of Rutherford Hall to the Pub. 

  

“You punks here for Psyc 305?” 

 

I almost jumped out of my skin; I didn’t notice the short, surly faced, though very well dressed man loitering outside the Pub entrance. Before either Annie or I could say anything he held out a hand.

  

“Call me Levi,” he said, shaking each of our hands in turn, “I’m the TA. Follow me, Dr. Hans is already inside.”

  

“How did you know we’re here for class?” I couldn’t help but ask, after all the Pub is, for reasons beyond my comprehension, a very popular hang out for university students and local residents alike; the cheap prices must make up for the nearly inedible quality of the food. 

  

Levi gives me a sidelong glance. “Are you kidding? You guys are a couple of nerds if ever I’ve seen them. I bet you haven’t even been in here before.”

 

Not true. Eren dragged me there once in first year, which is how I knew about the shitty food, but I decided to refrain from further comment, catching Annie’s eye and exchanging shrugs instead. Levi lead us through the maze of billiard tables and spilled drinks until we arrived at the private party rooms in the back. 

  

He didn’t bother knocking. “Here’s the last two,” he announced, flinging the door wide open.

  

I caught a glimpse of a very small group of people sitting awkwardly around a large table before someone jumped out in front of me, shoving a wine glass in my hand.

  

“Welcome! I’m Dr. Zoë Hans, so glad you found the place okay, I thought this would be the best place to infuse the atmosphere we’re going for with this class. Well don’t just stand there, come in come in! Grab a seat, we’ll start off with some introductions, then get right down to work.” Dr. Hans was enthusiastic to the point of absurdity. But we let her herd us to some open seats.

 

Annie was pulling out her iPad when I turned to her. “Is this even allowed?” I asked quietly, tilting my head towards to the wine glasses that everyone had.

 

She shrugged. “No idea. I sure didn’t think a class on substance use would have us actually using substances, though.”

 

“You and me both.” I had nothing against alcohol or the people who chose to indulge in it. I had nothing against anything any consenting adult chose to do with their time and money. It just wasn’t my thing. I’d drank a bit in high school at the behest of none other than Eren, but it just wasn’t my cup of tea; in fact I’d much prefer a plain old cup of tea with a spoonful of honey. 

 

At the other side of the table Dr. Zoë stood up and cleared her throat. “Thank you all for coming! This is not your typical class, so I hope no one is expecting an easy A!” 

 

Cue collective groans from around the table.

 

“We’re going to be implementing inquiry-based learning in this class,” continued Dr. Zoë. “If you are not familiar with this method, then you already know your first assignment!” She laughed, and I exchanged a glance with Annie. We’d both been in classes where the Profs used  self-directed learning or other similar teaching ideologies. Inquiry-based sounded like it’d be a similar deal, which meant we’d just signed ourselves up for considerably more work than we’d anticipated. Great.

  

The rest of the class passed uneventfully; Levi went over the syllabus, Dr. Zoë gave out a recommended reading list, they both encouraged us all to drink our wine. 

 

At the end of class, Annie stayed back to talk to the professor, as was her habit. I waited for her outside the party room, a dark cloud brewing over my head; this class did not bode well, I was sure. After a couple minutes, Annie joined me and we headed out of the Pub together.

 

“So, what’s the verdict?” I asked her.

 

She shrugged. “I suppose it’s not what we were expecting, but we didn’t have a whole lot of expectations to begin with, did we?”

 

“I suppose you right.” We stepped out of Rutherford Hall and into the chilly night. “We could always drop the class, it’s not too late.”

  

Annie shrugged again, “We could. But do you really want to take Geology 101?”

 

“Yes?”

  

She shook her head. “No, you don’t. They may call it rocks for jocks, but it’s not an easy class as I understand it. My roommate Mina almost flunked out.”

  

“Okay, okay. So we stick with Psyc 305.” There were actually probably hundreds of classes we could have taken; it’s a big university. But Annie and I had perfected the art of the minimalist timetable: we would spend hours working out how to schedule our classes so we had them all on two or three day out of the week. It was great; every weekend was a long weekend. And in this our final semester, we’d worked it out to only have class one day a week, which allowed us both the time to pick up extra shifts at out part time jobs and start looking for internships. I guess it wouldn’t’ve been the end of the world to have one class on another day, but this was like our crowing achievement: one day of class per week! Awesome, amiright? Plus changing my timetable now would be like admitting defeat to Eren, who said I’d never be able to manage it.

 

Surprisingly, the difficulties we expected to have proved to be non-issues. Our other elective classes actually ended up taking more effort; who knew that film professors still used freudian theory and were real sticky about semantics vs. syntax. But regardless of me no longer being able to watch E.T. without seeing phalluses everywhere, the semester was slowly nearing its end. Graduation was fast approaching, Annie and I had both managed to land internships, _paid_ internships no less, and it seemed like everything was going just swimmingly. Of course it was then that Dr. Zoë decided to drop a final group project on us. 

  

The thing with inquiry-based learning is that a prof can drop a big assignment on you and provide next to no direction at all. It was frustrating, particularly when all other classroom experiences dictated that a teacher tell you what they expect and you worked to meet those expectations. In this case, we had to come up with the expectations and then Dr. Zoë and Levi would decide if what we came up with made the grade or not. That is extremely anxiety inducing when you absolutely need to maintain your perfect 4.0 to keep that fantastic internship you just landed. Great. Love it. So glad we didn’t drop this class. 

 

It was a Friday afternoon. We were still struggling to come up with a useable line of inquiry for this massive final project; struggling to the point that we may have neglected it to the last minute. Well I say last minute, but we still had a week before it was due, so last minute for us. Last minute for someone like Eren is more along the lines of starting a paper three hours before it’s due. We were more responsible than that. Usually. We were sitting at our table, the big one by the windows next to the historical fiction section on the sixth floor of the library tower. We were racking our brains, we were starting to sweat.

 

Every proposal we’d turned in had barely passed, which neither of us could understand. Every time we submitted an idea, that damn Levi kept telling us our project, in it’s current state, would likely get a C, provided Dr. Hans was in a good mood that day, which she’s always in a good mood, but still, a C! Unacceptable. No way is a class we took for the hell of it, as an bloody elective, going to bring down our GPAs. No sir, not a chance.

 

The sun was slowly sliding across our table as we both concentrated in our own fashions; I was rocking back in my chair, my eyes closed, thinking; Annie buried herself in books and journals and case studies. I knew she’d reached rock bottom when she pulled out the class syllabus again; a sure sign of a struggling student is when they turn to the syllabus, trying to figure out exactly what’s being graded and therefore exactly what to focus on. I watched her quietly, her eyes scanned the three page printout at lighting speed. One of two things would happen at this point, either she’d find something we could potentially work with, and we’d start outlining a new proposal, or she’d crumple the stupid syllabus up and throw it at me, expecting me to spot something she missed, except she never missed anything. 

  

“Huh.”

  

I let my chair fall forward, landing with a bang in the silent library, which didn’t really matter because we were on the sixth floor and no one but us studied on this floor, possibly because we always claimed the only table. 

  

“Find something?” I asked.

  

“Possibly,” she said slowly. “Were you aware that ‘research method’ is weighted at 80% for this assignment?”

 

I leaned forwards, looking at her syllabus upside down. “I did not. But it’s not like this is a math problem where we show all our work,” I shrugged.

 

“Well, maybe we need to treat it like that,” said Annie.

  

“Okay, so process rules the day, which would then explain why Levi tore apart all of our other proposals.”They’d all been results oriented, which is what the education systems teaches students to focus on, really.

 

“Yes, it would,” said Annie, her nose already back in some book or other. I’m a self proclaimed book worm, but Annie puts even me to shame.

 

“How about this,” continued Annie after a few minutes contemplative silence. “We be the subjects.”

 

I made a face somewhere between a wince and a frown. It’s not that self experimentation isn’t done in psychology, it’s just that I have a really strong sense of self preservation, and this was exactly the kind of experiment I had a feeling could go very wrong. But how many times have I ever been able to say no to Annie? Exactly zero times, that’s how many.

 

We spent ten minutes on a new proposal. I was going to be Annie’s subject and she was going to be mine, we were each going to gradually drink ourselves into a stupor and our notes the next day would hopefully indicate how the social behaviour and ability to observe and come to conclusions is affected by substance use. Seeing as neither of us were big drinkers, it promised to be quite enlightening, if extremely ridiculous. How was this class even real? Then again, I did take a class on table top gaming last semester. We played Dungeons and Dragons for our final project, complete with Doritos, pizza, and mountain dew. I got an A+, of course. What even are universities.

 

We fired off our proposal to Levi and got a reply within minutes. 

 

 

_ Interesting approach. We’ll accept this provided you  _

_ get a third party to assist and provide sober analysis. Try not to do anything illegal or life threatening. _

 

_ L. _

 

 

Coming from Levi, ‘interesting approach’ was high praise. So we both started texting our immediate friends to see if one of them would be our third party. I figured all they’d have to do is watch us get drunk, make a few notes, take a few pictures, make sure we didn’t die… shouldn’t be hard to convince someone to help, right? I mean I’ve talked Eren into helping me with far more tedious projects.

  

Neither one of us could convince anyone to help. I couldn’t even get a hold of Eren and Mikasa, some friends. I was trying to think of who else we could ask and Annie was trying to blackmail some of the guys she knew from Muay Thai, when the last people I would have ever considered asking to help walked into out peaceful study space.

 

“Aw man! You guy are always here!” 

 

“It’s okay, Connie, we’ll just read historical fiction out loud until they leave.”

 

“You’re brilliant, as usual, Sasha.” 

 

Annie and I exchanged glances. Sasha and Connie were friends of ours, I guess. Maybe friends of friends would be more accurate. We didn’t really travel in the same circles, they were here for athletics while we were here for academics. Annie raised an eyebrow. I shook my head.

  

“You’re kidding, right?” I whispered as Sasha starts reading from some book set in the tenth century. 

 

Annie shrugged. “It’s not like we have anyone else lining up to help,” she whispered back. “Besides, they’re not so bad. Reiner says they’re the life of most parties. They’ll keep us on track.”

 

I crossed my arms and sat back in my chair. “Yeah, likely because they’ll want us black out so they can draw dicks on our faces.”

 

Annie shrugged again. “That’s all part of the process, isn’t it?”

 

“No, not really.”

 

“Come on, Armin, they probably won’t even say yes.”

 

I sighed, resigned, as Annie interrupted Sasha’s moving monologue about pagan kings.

 

~(◕ㅁ◕✿)~

 

Of course, they did say yes. Far more enthusiastically than I expected, which immediately filled me with dread. Oh boy, what had I gotten myself into.

 

We agreed that they would stay primarily in the background, intervening only when gravity started affecting us funny or we started talking to trees or whatever. And so that was how I found myself sitting late one Friday afternoon in a local pub across from Annie Leonhardt, notebook in my lap and several empty beer bottles in front of me.

 

I’ll be honest, at this point, things already seemed a little foggy around the edges, I already felt not myself, things I promptly made note of, and even drew cute little bees and flowers to compliment said notes. Annie on the other hand seemed completely unaffected, which I felt the need to point out to her.

 

“I think I’m drunker than you, whyisthat?” I said, not quite incoherently. It seemed that if I slurred my speech I could actually speak faster. I made a mental note to make another note; this discovery could prove useful while sober.

 

Annie smiled. “God, you’re cute when you’re drunk.”

 

I’m completely thrown off track. “Huh?” My eloquence is astounding, I know.

 

Annie just kept smiling, something that she didn’t actually do a lot normally. She shrugged, and just answered my original question. “I’m buzzed I suppose. I feel good, but I bet not as good as you.” She made a note of her own on her iPad. 

 

I made some strange gesture, which I felt conveyed my wish for her to elaborate quite well, but she just stared at me. A flash went off somewhere; Connie and Sasha taking their job very seriously, no doubt. 

 

“Do explain,” I managed to say finally. “I didn’t think you drank much either.”

 

“Well, I haven’t for a long time, but… I used to get in a lot of trouble when I was younger.” She shrugged again. “I guess my tolerance aged well.” She made another note. I did too, and then I drew what was supposed to be a lion, but looked like just another flower.

 

“Define a lot of trouble,” I asked. I was genuinely curious, and Annie was more talkative than I’d ever known her to be.

 

She hummed a little. “Well, when I was fifteen, I spent practically the whole summer in a drunk tank.”

 

My jaw dropped. I was so shocked, things started to come back into focus, and the fog receded a bit. “What? Really?”

 

Annie rolled her eyes and reached across the table to pat the back of my hand. “I know I’m disappointing you right now, Armin, but I haven’t alway been a straight A’s kind of girl.”

 

Before I could respond the waitress came around again, “Another round?”

 

Annie glanced at me, then shook her head, “Just the bill, please.”

 

I looked at her, confused. “We finished already?”

 

She smiled. “Hardly. But what’s the fun of staying in the same dingy pub the whole night?”

 

“No fun?”

 

“Exactly. Reiner and Bert told me about a house party later tonight that they think we should go to,” she said, throwing a twenty and change on the table.

 

“A house who now?” I said, adding my own twenty to the table.

 

“House party,” she repeated. “Have you never been to one before?”

 

Well, that completely depended on one’s definition of ‘house party’. I’ve been to parties that are held in houses, but they’ve never been like the ones from the movies or TV. Usually just a few friends and those red plastic cups with some take out food and maybe a shitty movie. Very tame. 

 

I gave Annie something between a shake and a nod of my head, and she smiled. 

 

“If it gets too crazy we can always ditch,” she reassured me. 

 

She stood up, shoving her tablet into her bag, and I followed suit, closing my notebook and putting it in my backpack. We track down Sasha and Connie, who’d been thoroughly distracted by a Jurassic Park arcade game.

 

“We’re leaving already? But I’ve almost got the high score!” said Sasha, her eyes never leaving the pixelated screen.

 

“Yeah, you guys haven’t blacked out yet!” Connie looked genuinely disappointed, which was highly worrisome.

 

“You know,” I said, “us blacking out is in no way, shape, or form a requirement for this project.”

 

“Is now suckas!” said Connie, pulling out his copy of our proposal. We’d given one to him and Sasha in case they forgot what it is they were supposed to be doing. However, Connie had taken the liberty of adding on to it: he’d drawn two little stick figures, presumably Annie and I, our eyes replaced with little Xs and our tongues hanging out. Lovely.

 

I gave Annie a slightly panicked look, but she just snatched the paper from Connie’s hand, crumpled it up and tossed it at his head.

 

“Stop goofing around,” she said, “we’re just going to grab some real food before we go over to Jean’s, otherwise I doubt Armin will make it past 10.” She was probably right.

 

Sasha’s fingers flew over the game’s controls, the picture of perfect concentration. “They serve food here.”

 

I scoffed. “They _pretend_ to serve food here.” It was the truth. Pub fare can iffy at the best of times, but there must have been something about the university area that scared off any decent restaurants. Apparently no one can make decent chicken wings when there is higher education afoot. 

 

A t-rex swooped onto the screen, consuming Sasha’s character whole. “Ugh, fine,” she said, flipping the bird at the arcade game. “So, where are we going then, oh ye of the picky palate?”

 

Annie gave me a long thoughtful look, the smallest of smiles was tugging at the corners of her mouth. “There’s a pretty slick sports bar downtown. I think you’d like it, Armin.”

 

I shrugged and nodded. I was game for pretty much anything at this point; I hadn’t noticed know hungry I was.

 

We all leave the pub and walk the few blocks to the LRT station to take us downtown. I was lost in thought the whole ride. I had sobered up significantly from even half an hour ago. I couldn’t quite decide if it was from being hungry or from the shock or Annie actually telling me about herself without me having to pry. I had pulled out my note book to mark down some of these observations, both the ones about myself and about Annie. Annie who wasn’t all she seemed, who had mysteries in her past, who’d obviously had a rebellious phase, a concept completely foreign to me. 

 

“Whatcha writing there, nerd?” asked Connie, leaning over to the point of practically being in my lap in order to see my notes. 

 

“I’m doing the assignment, Connie,” I said wearily. “Remember, the whole reason you and Sasha are even here?”

 

“Oh, sooooorrrry. Sash and I will try our best no to interfere with your date, then.” He said it flippantly, but it sent a tingling feeling down my spine. I caught Annie’s eye where she was sitting in the seat across from me on the train, our knees almost touching. I cleared my throat and abruptly turned my attention out the window where dusk was gradually cloaking the city in darkness. 

 

Sasha and Connie where having a mindless conversation, and Annie would comment every now and then, but I couldn’t drag my eyes away from that window, my mind stuttering around that word over and over again. _Date?_ Oh, man, I wish. The slight buzz I still had going allowed me to be honest enough with myself that I would probably never be able to work up the nerve to ask Annie out. I mean, I’d known her for years now, we were friends, there was no arguing about that. True, most of the time we spent together was related to academics, but there had been a handful of times where it wasn’t. Those hadn’t been dates though, we’d just been hanging out. Maybe that’s all we’d ever do is hang out. And I decided that was fine. She was my friend first, no matter how big a crush I had. 

 

Finally, after what felt like years, the friendly train voice announced our stop and we all shuffled off the train. Annie and I fell into step, walking side by side as she led us to the sports bar. 

 

She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. “You alright?”

 

I gave her a big smile. “I’m great,” I said. And I really was. Just being around her lifted my spirits, I hadn’t realized how much until I’d had my little epiphany on the train. “Staving though,” I added.

 

“Good,” she said, and I thought it must have been my imagination but she sounded almost relived. “I think you’ll like this place. It’s got really great food, and the vibe there always kinda reminded me of you.”

 

I was surprised. “Really? A sports bar reminds you of me?” Me, who had never played sports except what was required in grade school phys ed.

 

“Yeah,” she smiled, “You’ll see what I mean when we get there.”

 

I was intrigued, but didn’t say anything else. We walked the final half dozen blocks in silence.

 

Annie was right. This was my kind of sports bar. I had been expecting maybe a baseball theme, as that’s pretty much the only _sport_ sport I can pretend to tolerate, but this had nothing to do with baseball, or basket ball, in fact there were very few balls involved all. It was a _nerdy_ sports bar. One big screen TV had a fencing match on, another had what looked like a documentary on laser tag. The tables were all painted to look like chess boards, with the salt and pepper shakers shaped like a black king and a white queen; there were DDR machines in the far corner, and Battleship games set up at the tables by the door. The walls were covered with equipment from curling, tennis, golf, _disc_ golf. I was in awe. I could feel my eyes going wide as they noticed each new thing before finally looking at Annie. 

 

She had a big smile on her face, “Well?”

 

It took me a second or two to get my mouth to work. I flailed my arms around, trying to indicate everything at once. “This,” I said, “this is freaking amazing. How did I not know about this place? It’s like every sport Eren ever made fun of me for liking in one place! I love it! Let play Battleship!”

 

Annie laughed. “How about we order first.”

 

We grabbed a table near the windows. I ordered a steak sandwich with fries, Annie went with beef dip and onion rings. Almost as an after thought we each ordered a pint of the house draft. Then we set up a game of Battleship. I almost didn’t want the food to come. But it did, and it was incredibly delicious.

 

I was feeling good, like really good. The food had been exactly what I needed and the beer was light but left me feeling a little fuzzy, but in a good way. I was completely content. Annie looked like she felt the same. There was a slight blush to her cheeks that oddly really brightened the blue of her eyes. It was gorgeous, and I was actually about to tell her so (and then blame it on the beer if necessary) when the din of the bar was interrupted by raucous laughter, and Sasha shouting, “You asshole, you sunk my battleship! I’ll kill you!”

 

I rolled my eyes. “I think that’s our cue to leave.”

 

~(ʘ‿ʘ✿)~

 

The warm happy feeling I’d had at the bar was slipping away fast, almost as fast as our cabbie was driving. We’d decided that it’d be quickest to take a cab to Jean’s house party. Sasha had called shotgun, which left Connie, Annie, and I to cram ourselves into the back. I super did not mind being shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, with Annie on my right, but I definitely could have done without Connie jammed in on my left, especially when he started singing along to the ’80’s music playing over the crackling radio. 

 

I took a moment to jot down a few more notes, Annie was doing the same beside me, then I pulled out my phone, having just thought about how I didn’t tell anyone I was going to be out late tonight. Sure enough there was about twelve texts from Eren. They started out ordinary enough, asking when I’d be home, reminding me it was my night to do dishes, but they gradually progressed to texts in all caps asking if I was dead and should he call 911. The last text was from Mikasa saying she was sure I was fine, but could I please answer Eren before she had to resort to violence to get him to shut up. I couldn’t help but laugh.

 

Annie had been answering her own messages, but looked over at my chuckle. “What?”

 

I showed her my phone. “Eren is an infant.”

 

She smiled, “Well that’s nothing new. I take it you neglected to mention to them you weren’t going to be home at a decent hour?”

 

“I may have, but if they had answered when I called them to help us out earlier today they would have known that I’d be out tonight.” I sent a quick message to them both anyways. Knowing Eren he probably would report me missing unless Mikasa knocked him out first.

 

With no more messages to distract me, I looked up from my phone and noticed where we were for the first time, and by that I mean I noticed I had no idea where we were. Jean supposedly lived in the suburbs about 20 minutes west of the university; a really fancy neighbourhood, but he was lucky enough to be able to still live with his parents unlike the rest of us who were stuck paying rent. But at this moment we were most decidedly not going west. In fact I had the sneaking suspicion we were going east which was mostly industrial park, and sketchy as heck after dark. 

 

“Um,” I said. I wasn’t really sure how to break it to every one that we were going the wrongest of wrong ways. Sasha and Connie continued their radio sing-along, the cabbie obviously didn’t hear me over their racket, but Annie did. She glanced up at me, and then immediately out the window when she saw my expression. 

 

“Shit,” she said under her breath. “I guess that’s what we get for trusting Sasha to give the address.”

 

And then she did the bravest thing I’d ever seen someone do. Well, not really. But I get really anxious talking to people I don’t know, and so would probably have just let the cabbie drop me off in the middle of nowhere rather than say anything to him. But not Annie. 

 

She reached over me and tapped the guy on the shoulder, half shouting to be heard over the radio and it’s unwanted backup singers. “Hey, sorry, but I think my friend told you the wrong address, we need 184th Ave _West,_ not East.” 

 

My anxiety induced fears ended up being all for nothing as it turned out. The cabbie didn’t dump us on the side of the road and leave us for dead, he just apologised and turned around. Sasha also apologised profusely to everyone in the car. But the slight ill feeling I’d started getting when we first got into the cab was getting decidedly worse.

 

We were almost to Jean’s place when Connie happened to glance my way. “Hey, dude, you’re looking kinda green, you have kale for dinner or what?” 

 

If only that was the reason. The cabbie seemed to sense the danger to his car however, and drove even faster. We made it to Jean’s in record time and while the others pooled cash to pay the driver, I wandered a few feet away before I doubled over and hurled in Jean’s mom’s flower bed. 

 

They must have helped me get into the house because the next thing I knew, I was in a beautifully decorated bathroom with voices all around me. 

 

“You guys are lucky he barfed outside or else you’d be the ones cleaning it up.”

 

“Dude, I’ve never seen Armin drink before, let alone drunk! This is wild! Take a picture, he’ll want to remember this forever!” 

 

“Get you phone out of here, Reiner, no way he’s drunk, he’s barely drank anything yet.”

 

“Best cure for anything is onion juice, my mom says.” 

 

“Gross. Now I want to throw up.”

 

“Anyone who feels like throwing up, go the hell outside! My parents will kill me if there’s vomit anywhere.”

 

“Does he get motion sick? Maybe he’s just motion sick. Taxis always make me motion sick.”

 

The sound of a camera shutter, followed by the sound of a fist meeting flesh.

 

“Ouch, okay okay, just ask and we’ll leave, no need for violence. Come on, Bert.” 

 

Finally, blessed silence. Something damp was being held against my forehead. I opened eyes and tried to focus. I found myself looking straight into Annie’s eyes. She looked concerned, and maybe a little guilty, I couldn’t fathom why though.

 

“What’s with that face,” I asked. Evidently I was a little drunk; that’s not the kind of question I’d normally ask in this kind of situation. 

 

She narrowed her eyes slightly, the look of concern deepening. “Armin, you’re sick. This project was a bad idea. We should just get you home.”

 

I waved her off. I was actually feeling way better, and it was only partly because she was sitting so close to me on the edge of the bath tub. “No, no. Bertoldt’s right. I got motion sick. I always get motion sick in the back seat, and that cab smelled kind funny, did you notice?” 

 

“I dunno —” 

 

“I’m fine,” I said, reaching up and pulling her hand holding the damp cloth away from my head, “really.”

 

She didn’t look super convinced, but in my partially intoxicated state, I probably didn’t sound super convincing. “If you say so, but a stupid project’s not worth your health, Armin.”

 

I laughed at that. “So you say, and yet here we are, intending to get our selves wasted for a stupid project. Our livers will not thank us later, I think.”

 

“A valid point,” she said with a smile.

 

We rejoined the others, and I was thoroughly mocked by everyone, which I should have expected I supposed. I can’t say I was really bothered by it; the fuzzy feeling was coming back and it made me want to smile a lot, which was a nice feeling really. Someone handed me one of those red cups. There was a stereo playing music at an uncomfortable decibel. There were people dancing around to music in their heads because it sure didn’t match what was playing over the speakers. There were all kinds of snacks out, and I helped myself seeing as I’d lost my dinner outside. It turned out this was less like a house party and more like a pre-drinking get together before every when out to celebrate the end of the semester. I wondered if Annie would want us to go with them. 

 

I was lost in these kinds of thoughts, just absorbing the high voltage energy of the party when someone grabbed my arm and dragged bodily me into the kitchen. I imagine I was still smiling as I turned to my attacker: Connie, who had deadly serious look on his face which really didn’t suit him at all.

 

“Look, man, I feel really bad, you being sick out there,” said Connie.

 

“It’s fine, Connie, I’m fine — ”

 

“No, listen,” he interrupts, “I know how important your grades and stuff are, and I’d feel really bad if you did bad on this project because you were sick and couldn’t finish it.”

 

“Really, Connie, I’m okay now, there’s nothin — ”

 

“You say that Armin, but It’s just like my teammates, right? You say your fine so you don’t let anyone down. You don’t want to let Annie down, I know that, so I’m going to help you.”

 

“Connie, listen, I really don’t need — ”

 

“This is for your own good, man!”

 

Before I could even react, Connie grabs me. He’s on the smaller side, built kinda springy, so I was definitely not expecting him to be so strong or so heavy. I couldn’t get him off me. I dropped my drink, and struggled for all I was worth, but Connie was lifting more than text books, which was literally the extend of my fitness regime. He wrestled me towards the sink, where is could see a glass of something putrid waiting for me. I remembered what he’d said earlier about onion juice and redoubled my efforts to escape, but nothing could shake him. He bend me backwards and managed to free up a hand long enough to dump the foul solution down my throat just as I’d opened my mouth to shout for help. 

 

I felt like I was dying. This was the end of Armin Arlert. Killed at the hands of a misguided friend. It turns out Connie hadn’t known where Jean’s parents kept the real onions so he’d improvised; a few scoops of onion powder in a glass of milk is like the same thing, right? No. It’s definitely not the same, Connie, not the same at all. 

 

I was on my hands and knees on the kitchen floor coughing and spluttering, partly because the stuff was so awful, I was sure it was actually poison, and partly because my lungs had taken serious offense to having some of that stuff forced on them. Connie, the helpful guy he is, started pounding me on the back, because he hadn’t abused me enough already, apparently.

 

The door to kitchen burst open right about then, Jean leading the pack.

  

“What in the hell is going on? What is that shit he’s coughing up?” he shouted at us. I was in no condition to answer, but Connie piped up.

 

“Onion juice, it’s an anti poison,” he said defensively.

 

“Anti poison? Looks like it’s killing him,” observed Marco.

 

“Yeah, I don’t think using onion powder has the same effect, bud,” said Reiner, who’d picked the offending jar up off the counter.

 

“Jesus Christ, Connie, he was fine!” said, Annie, elbowing her was towards my wheezing form. “Shit, Armin, you okay?”

 

I managed to gasp out “Kill… Connie…” before succumbing to another coughing fit. 

 

Some people laughed, but I was totally serious.

 

Annie started tugging me up onto my feet. “Hey, Jean can he borrow a shirt or something?”

 

Jean shrugs, “Sure, he can take a bloody shower, too if he wants. Connie here,” Jean reached out and grabbed Connie’s arm before he could slip away, “will be cleaning up this mess.”

 

“Thanks Jean. Come on, Armin, up you get.”

 

“You remember where everything is?”Jean asks. Annie nodded as she put one of my arms over her shoulders and half lead, half carried my still coughing self out of the kitchen and up the stairs. 

 

I assumed it was Jean’s room we were in. Lucky bastard had his own bathroom. I managed to get myself in the shower and grab the bottle of body wash and poor half of it all over me. I considered for a second washing my mouth out with it, but experience cussing as a child made me nix that idea. 

 

“Hey,” I called out, “does Jean have a spare tooth brush?”

 

I hear Annie laugh, then the door to the bathroom open. “He sure does. I put on the counter, toothpaste is in the top drawer.” The door closed again, leaving me to my shower thoughts. What did Jean mean when he asked if she remembered where everything was? Were they that good of friends? I knew that she knew him, we both did, though Eren’s intense and ungrounded dislike of him resulted in me rarely actually hanging out with him. But he was minoring in Psychology, so I saw him often enough around campus. Did he do Muay Thai with Annie, too? 

 

I shut off the water and reached for the towel Annie had left me, wrapping is snugly around my hips. I could still taste onion juice, so I opened the top drawer and grabbed the mintiest tub of toothpaste there was. Once my mouth was as clean as I could get it short of going to a dentist for a fluoride treatment, I opened the door.

 

Annie was laying on Jean’s bed staring at the ceiling. She sat up as I walked out and picked up the shirt she’d pulled out of Jean’s wardrobe for me to wear. 

 

“That’s a good look for you, Armin,” she said with a smirk, “have you considered joining the swim team?”

 

I’d never been the most body confident, it’s hard to be when you have a soft scholarly body and your best friends growing up are totally ripped. Yes, I will blame all my self confidence issues on Eren and Mikasa, and no one can stop me. But the alcohol I’d been drinking all night made it easy to push the feelings of inadequacy away. I turned to Annie and pretended to flex.

 

“You know, I was belly flop champion first year. I only quit because there were no more awards I could win.” I made a show of kissing my biceps.

 

Annie laughed. “Okay, I was joking about the swim club, they’re too nerdy, even by our standards. But it is a good look,” she said, still smiling, but a slight rosiness had crept onto her cheeks, “you look good.”

 

I snorted, “Yeah okay, I’m gonna to put some clothes on now.”

 

“A shame, but alright.”

 

I closed the door again and started to get dressed as my shower thoughts drifted back to the front of my brain, and my curiosity got the better of me.

 

“Hey, Annie,” I asked through the closed door, “what did Jean mean when he asked if you remembered where everything was.”

 

“He meant exactly what he said,” came her muffled reply. 

 

“I just didn’t, I mean, I didn’t know you guys were such good friends,” I said slipping the shirt on and starting to button it up.

 

“Well, we’re not really. We did date for a bit a couple summers ago, though.” 

 

“What?!” I threw the door open and stared at her, my shirt only half buttoned.

 

“What?”

 

I picked my jaw up from the floor and said quietly, “I didn’t know that.”

 

Annie swung her legs off the bed and stood up, she faced me, her hands on her hips. She doesn’t look mad, but there is a slightly dangerous gleam in her eye. “Does it matter?”

 

“No, not at all,” I said, using my unbuttoned shirt as an excuse to look anywhere but at her. But my partially inebriated brain conspired with my mouth for me to say a stupid thing. “You stayed over at his house, though?”

 

“You’re kidding, right, Armin?” asked Annie, that dangerous edge had spread from her eyes to her voice. “Do you really think that someone like me, who clearly had some troubled teen years, only used alcohol as an outlet? Do you think I’m some kind of saint? Because that would be a mistake.”

 

I shook my head and finally looked up at her. She still didn’t look mad. If anything she just looked maybe a little disappointed. 

 

“That’s not it,” I said softly, “it’s just, you’re always surprising me. You have so many facets that I can’t help but feel two dimensional by comparison.” 

 

I wasn’t entirely sure where that came from. I had never consciously thought that I felt that way, but as the words poured out of my mouth unbidden, I knew they were true. She was like a beautiful rendered character from the latest Square Enix video game, and I was just a crappy NES version Koopa Troopa. 

 

Annie sighed. She slowly walked over to me and looked me in the eyes. “Well, if makes you feel better, I don’t think that at all. To me, Armin, you are the ultimate enigma, one that I never want to stop trying to solve.” She smiled. “Come on, let’s go find a way to ditch Sasha and Connie.”

 

~(///∇///✿)~

 

Ditching them turned out to be very easy. After the onion juice fiasco, they’d both started drinking themselves. Connie supposedly because he felt so bad for screwing up my night, and Sasha because she was a good supportive friend, and friends don’t let friends drink alone. Whatever. I was beyond trying to understand the weird and wanton ways of Sasha and Connie. 

 

Jean was in the middle of organizing cabs for everyone to take downtown to the club they were going to hang out at the rest of the night. He assumed that Annie and I would be joining them, and so he’d called a extra cab to fit us is. 

 

When the cabs all showed up about an hour and several drinks later, we made sure to grab one for ourselves (Annie insisted I ride shotgun) and told everyone we’d see them there. As the cabbie took off, I turned to Annie 

 

“So, where are we going if not to the club?”

 

“I thought maybe we could go to the Little Titan? It’s a karaoke bar, we can just kick back, relax, and drink until all the people trying to sing sound good.” 

 

I stared at her for a a moment, trying to get a handle on my emotions before i could answer. “Are you an angel?” I asked, a little choked up, “because that sounds like heaven.”

 

Annie laughed and punched me lightly in the shoulder. “To the Little Titan! 27th and 3rd!

 

I’d never been to a karaoke bar before. It had a weird kind of energy, but I was really digging it. Plus this place seemed to have stolen my iPod or something because I knew every song that came on. We managed to score a table near the front but far enough to one side that any thrown food wouldn’t come close to us. We opened a tab and told the waiter to just keep the drinks coming, whatever he thought we might like. It was amazing. We laughed, we cried (but only because we were laughing so hard), we even sang along to our favourites. I made a blurry mental note that Annie murmured how much she loved Diamond Rings whenever one of their songs played, and we both belted out the chorus of the Smallpools song _Dreaming_ despite the dirty looks from the bald guy who was performing it.

 

Then a certain song came on, and I could not stop myself. The stage was currently empty. I gave Annie a wide-eyed look of awe before I jumped out of my seat and rushed the stage in time to sing the first line of the song. There was a part of my brain that had somehow managed to stay more or less sober and it was cringing. Note even Eren and Mikasa knew that I listen to this kind of music. It was my guilty pleasure, what I had blasting in my headphones as I walked to class, to work, or while I was just laying on my bed unwinding at home. I loved it. It didn’t take me long and I had the whole room singing along with me. 

 

_ “It’s going down,  _

_ I’m yelling TIMBER!  _

_ You better move,  _

_ you better dance!  _

_ Let’s make a night  _

_ you won’t remember! _

_ I’ll be the one  _

_ you won’t forget!”  _

 

I avoided looking Annie’s way, but the one time it did glance at her, she had a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide.

 

I took a sweeping bow when the song came to an end. I don’t think I’d ever felt so alive. I reclaimed my seat next to Annie. She had the biggest grin on her face that I’d ever seen. 

 

“Well well well, Mr Arlert,” she said, “you are full of surprises. I had no idea you have the voice of god himself, nor would I have ever guess in my wildest dream that you were a Ke$ha fan.”

 

I laughed, “Yeah, well, her music makes me stupidly happy, you know?I just feel like she really know haw to have fun.” My brain was, meanwhile, doing cartwheels: the voice of god, she said! She thought I was a good singer! Ha!

 

I got up and sang a bunch more after that: _Golden Years_ by David Bowie, _Hands Down_ by Dashboard Confessionals, and _Then We Kiss_ by Icona Pop. I couldn’t convince Annie to sing anything. She claimed to not be drunk enough, but I wasn’t sure how either of us could be any more drunk. It felt like the world was made of sunshine and rainbows and Annie and I were right at it’s centre. 

 

When the last call for drinks came, I decided to sing a song for Annie. I made my way once more up to the stage and selected the song. Diamond Rings had played a bunch that night, but not this particular song. I felt it was fitting for us, for this night, and our more than likely failed project. I decided it was our song.

 

_ “And if you ever wonder _

_ How we keep from going under _

_ It's because we find another _

_ Reason not to give in, _

_ And even though we may not _

_ Get to where we wanna go _

_ I do believe that we both know _

_ It don't matter in the end.” _

 

I made sure to keep looking back at Annie, I could see her mouthing the worlds along with me, and that made me feel like I’d just won the lottery or something. 

 

_ "No matter what the weather _

_ I'll do anything whatever _

_ If I could be so very bold, oh _

_I never want us to grow old."_  

 

She cheered the loudest at the end of my performance, giving me a standing ovation as a voice came over the bar speakers.

 

“What a wonderful way to end the evening, ladies and gents, give it up for the young man who needs a hair cut!”

 

“I like it long,” I shouted to the quickly emptying room. 

 

“Good for you,” replied the voice, “now get out of my bar.” 

 

We stumbled out into the cool night air, walking side by side, our arms brushing against each other with every step. 

 

“I don’t want to go home yet,” said Annie after a few minutes. 

 

To be honest, I didn’t either. I looked up a the clear night sky. It’s hard at the best of times to seen many stars within city limits, but tonight must have been an exception; the sky looked gorgeous.

 

“We could maybe take a moonlit walk through the park?” I suggested.

 

“Why, sir,” said Annie, “that sounds delightful.”

 

I offered her the crook of my arm which she took with both of hers, and we strolled off, occasionally lurching to one side or another in search of a park to walk in. 

 

We ended up taking a train to Confederation Park which was both close to campus and my apartment. Convenient, should we happened upon by a police officer, we could claim to be on our way to the safety of our home just across the park. We started walking laps, sometimes talking about anything and everything, other times completely silent and just enjoying the moment. 

 

Finally, Annie lurched to a halt and announced, “I’m tired.” She sat down right there in the grass, and pulled me down with her. 

 

We lay on our backs for a while, straining our eyes to see as many stars as we could. I pointed out some of the constellations I knew and could somewhat make out through the light pollution, and she made up wildly inaccurate stories for them, until we lapsed into companionable silence. 

 

After a while, I sat up. I really was getting tired, and I didn’t particularly like the idea of falling asleep in the park. I didn’t feel sick or anything, I actually still felt really good, though I knew I’d probably feel different about this whole night come tomorrow, especially seeing how we kinda failed to do the actual project we’d set out to do. But that was a problem for tomorrow’s me. I was about to suggest we work on getting home, when Annie was suddenly sitting up beside me, or rather, facing me, and slowly closing the distance between us.

 

It was the perfect moment, the planets had aligned, there were fireworks going off inside my brain. I was terrified that I’d screw it up, make a wrong move, something, but I forced myself to follow her lead. I leaned in, my eyes fluttered closed when we were only centimetres apart. I felt her lips against mine and there was a part of me that just wanted to jump up and do a victory dance. I was kissing Annie. I WAS KISSING ANNIE! Me, Armin Arlert, kissing Annie Leonhardt, the most incredible girl on the face of the planet, HANDS DOWN! 

 

But then she pulled away. Well, not entirely. She kind of moved her head to the side and rested it on my shoulder. She was shaking a bit and for a heart beat I was petrified, did I hurt her somehow? Then I realised that she was laughing and I was petrified all over again, was I really that bad? She kind of straightened up, and took my face in her hands. She was trying not to laugh, but she wasn’t really succeeding.

 

“Armin, you are so sweet, and smart, and beautiful, and a surprisingly good kisser, but…” she took a moment to regain control of her laughter, “but you still taste like onions.”

 

She broke down laughing. Meanwhile my face was beet red. I was so relieved that the only reason we stopped kissing was because of the onion juice, but still….

 

I took a deep breath and turned my face to the star studded night sky.

 

“FUCK YOU, CONNIE!” I shouted into the void, while Annie collapsed in a fit of laughter beside me. 

 

~(◡‿◡✿)~

  

We raced across campus, hand in hand, both of us laughing, and shouting, and punching the air. It’s a good thing we were both happy drunks. I mean I assume Annie would have already known she was a happy drunk, but I was a wild card; I’d never been drunk before, imagine if I was grumpy or something. Maybe if I got drunk alone I would be, but honestly, I don’t think I could be anything but happy so long as I was with Annie. 

 

Annie had remembered there was a vending machine in the library tower that sold mouthwash among with other oddities. So that’s where we were headed. The library’s always open 24/7 the last couple weeks of term, so we knew we would be able get in. We just had to act sober long enough to get the Listerine before one of the Librarians kicked us out. Piece of cake. 

 

Well, it turns out that a drunk person’s version of sober is extremely inaccurate, to say the least. There weren’t many people in the library, it being past three in the morning, but there were still enough people shooting us dirty looks to bring a librarian swooping down on us before we could get to the machine, which was inconveniently located on the third floor. 

 

Everything got kind of blurry here, like the whole night caught up to me all at once. I ending up on the floor clutching the librarians pant leg, trying to explain how I just needed some Listerine, but all the came out of my mouth was “You don’t understand, I’m onion, I’M ONION! Please help me!” while Annie unhelpfully laughed at me and confirmed my story with, “He’s so onion, it’s awful.”

 

Campus security was called, and we were carted off across the city to spend the rest of the night at a sobering-up centre.

 

~(◕ᴗ◕✿)~

 

I take a long sip of my now cold coffee. Mikasa’s looking at me with a smug little smile on her face. Eren on the other hand looks like a disapproving parent.

 

“And? What happened next?” he asks.

 

I sigh. “You know what happened next. I called you, and you two came to pick me up.”

 

“That can’t be all —” Eren begins, but Mikasa shushes him with a look.

 

“I’m just glad you had a good time,” she says serenely.

 

I get a dreamy look on my face. “You know? I really did,” I say. Then I wince as my headache chooses that moment to get significantly worse. “I don’t think I care to repeat the drunk part any time soon, however.”

 

“I just want to know who’s responsible for that Instagram account,” says Eren, “it’s gonna hurt your nerd cred, you know.”

 

The Instagram account is hardly a mystery. Annie and I had asked two people who were supposed to be our friends to help us document the night for the purposes of science. But, when Eren and Mikasa finally picked me up this morning, the first thing Eren shows me is a photographic account of our whole night. Even after we ditched everyone. Which I guess proves that we were a lot drunker than we thought, and that Sasha and Connie are a lot sneakier than anyone could have possibly guessed. 

 

Either way, overnight Annie and I have become the It couple, on the tips of everyone’s tongues, the main topic of conversations all over campus. Trust me when I say that’s not something I’d ever aspired to, and I see a few unenjoyable weeks ahead, but no doubt it will soon fade into the ambient background noise of hook ups, break ups, and general fuck ups that make up the atmosphere of most universities. Life goes on, as they say. And, hey, who knows, maybe we can figure out a way use it to salvage our Psyc project.

 

Sudden there's a tap on the glass. We all turn to look out the window. It's Annie; one hand shoved into her hoodie pocket the other giving a small wave. It's like Eren and Mikasa aren't even there anymore. A smile creeps onto my face and I wave back. She motions for me to join her outside and I don't even think twice about it. I jump up, gabbing my jacket and jamming my arms into the bunched up sleeves. 

 

"Hey! Where d'you think you're going?” Eren says, half standing, "you haven't finished the story!”

 

"I'm finishing it right now,” I say, digging a few dollars out of my pocket and tossing them onto the table.

 

And I'm gone, out the door and after Annie, who'd started down the street as soon as she'd seen me stand up to follow her. I catchup and reach out, tapping her lightly in the shoulder. She turns and she's already smiling. It doesn't matter that I'd seen her smile more last night than I had the entire four years I'd known her, it still sends a sweet tingling feeling down my spine; God, how on earth is she so perfect? 

 

She slows down for half a step as I match her pace, walking shoulder to shoulder, our arms gently brushing every few steps, our hands jammed in our pockets. For a few blocks we walk in companionable silence, the kind of silence we've always been able to enjoy together. We cross Charleston Ave and skirt along the edges of Confederation Park. 

 

Finally Annie breaks the silence. 

 

"So. How are you feeling?"

 

 he's not looking at me; her eyes are roving, gliding over the new spring growth, already so much greener than it was looking just yesterday. 

 

I shrug. "Like shit," I say. And I do. I really do feel worse than I ever have in my entire life thus far, but I find I can ignore it pretty well with Annie there beside me. 

 

She hums. "I'd be surprised if you didn't."

 

"How about you?" I ask. 

 

"Also like shit," she says. 

 

"You don't look it.”

 

"Yeah, well, I showered." She gives me a sidelong look.

 

"Yeah, well," I say trying not to laugh, "my friends aren't as punctual as yours, apparently. I haven't even been home yet." 

 

She laughs, "And instead of going straight home, you go for a coffee?"

 

"Of course," I say "come to think of it, how'd you even know we were there?"

 

"Are you kidding? You guys are always in that cafe." She shakes her head. "Can't figure why, though; the coffee tastes like feet."

 

I laugh. "It really does!”

 

We turn our steps south, following a path that weaves us through a stand of old oak trees. 

 

"You know," says Annie after a while, "I know some really good hangover remedies."

 

I wince. "They don't involve onion juice, do they?" I will never forgive Connie. 

 

"No, no onion juice," she says smiling, "Just PJs, pizza, and Netflix." 

 

 Oh, my god, that sounds so good right now." 

 

We leave the path and start walking in the general direction of my apartment. Shoulders still brushing, but now our hands are joined, our fingers linking together so naturally that I wonder why it took us this long to figure it out. 

 

Maybe we're not as smart as we like to think we are. Maybe. 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Armin is a Ke$ha fan, fight me.


End file.
